American Consumers Newsletter
by Cheryl Russell, Editorial Director, New Strategist Press
June 2011
The Collapse of the Housing Market
1. Hot Trends: THE COLLAPSE OF THE HOUSING MARKET
2. Q & A: WHY IS CRIME DOWN?
3. Cool Links: 2010 CENSUS DATA, HOW WE PAY FOR THINGS, GEOGRAPHIC MOBILITY
4. New Reference Tools: AMERICAN HOMES, AMERICAN MARKETPLACE, WHO WE ARE: ASIANS, BLACKS, and HISPANICS
To see Cheryl Russell’s Demo Memo blog, click here.
1. Hot Trends
Like I said, there is no good news for housing in the demographics trends.
BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW
Source: Americans and Their Homes
2. Q & A
A few weeks ago, the FBI released its preliminary crime report for 2010, showing–yet again–a decline in violent crime (murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault). The rate of violent crime today is lower than at any time since the early 1970s, and nobody can figure out why. With the large millennial generation inflating the most crime-prone age group (40 percent of people arrested are aged 15 to 24) and unemployment stubbornly high, most believed crime would rise rather than fall.
Some say crime is down because so many criminals have been locked up. Others say crime is down because policing has become smarter and more effective. But the steep decline in crime throughout the United States begs for a deeper, sociological explanation.
Here it is: helicopter parents. Yes, you can thank those obnoxious, overbearing parents you’ve heard so much about because–over the past few decades–they have succeeded in transforming the teenage and young adult milieu. The rate of violent crime peaked in 1991. The young adults of that year were born in the late 1960s and early 1970s–just before the baby-boom generation became the nation’s parents en masse. Boomers had fewer children and focused more on the success of each one, keeping their teenagers busy with supervised after-school activities. At age 18, they shipped them off to college where they spent their free time drinking and hooking up rather than hanging out on street corners. When they graduated from college into a job market that, by all accounts, should be turning the desperately unemployed into criminals, boomers welcomed them back into their homes and kept them out of trouble.
Surprise. The baby-boom generation managed to do something right.
By Cheryl Russell, editorial director, New Strategist Publications. If you have any questions or comments about the above Q & A, contact demographics@newstrategist.com
BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW
Percentage of married-couple households that include children of any age: 54%
Source: American Marketplace
3. Cool Research Links
BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW
Number of metropolitan areas in which Hispanics are the majority of the population: 17.
Source: Who We Are: Hispanics
· The American Marketplace: Demographics and Spending Patterns, 10th ed. Quick and easy access is the goal of the new 10th edition of The American Marketplace: Demographics and Spending Patterns, your reliable alternative to the threatened Statistical Abstract. Designed for convenience,The American Marketplace draws on scores of government sources to give you a population profile of the United States in one handy volume. Its hundreds of tables are organized into 11 chapters covering attitudes, education, health, housing, income, labor force, living arrangements, population, spending, time use, and wealth. This edition of The American Marketplace contains the latest 2010 census data by age and sex, as well as population totals for states and metropolitan areas. The book includes attitudinal data from the recently released 2010 General Social Survey. Plus, you get the latest numbers on the changing housing market. Also included are 2010 labor force statistics, and the latest income data. The wealth chapters includes newly released information on what the Great Recession did to net worth, assets, and debts. The spending chapter reveals how spending patterns are changing.
· Americans and Their Homes: Demographics of Homeownership, 3rd ed. The all-new third edition ofAmericans and Their Homes: Demographics of Homeownership–the first update since 2005–is already creating a buzz in the real estate industry with its up-to-date look at homeownership and the housing market through 2010. InAmericans and Their Homes, which contains 50 percent more information than the previous edition, you get the very latest demographic data profiling the nation’s homeowners and renters–their age, income, household type, race, Hispanic origin and region of residence. You will also learn about their homes–heating, cooling, kitchen and laundry equipment, purchase price and value, housing costs, and much, much more. New to this edition of Americans and Their Homes is much more data on the demographics of renters and the characteristics of their homes and apartments. As it becomes more difficult to buy and sell houses, renting has become a viable alternative for millions of Americans–especially young adults. Americans and Their Homes shows you who rents and what they rent. Despite the turmoil of the Great Recession, most homeowners still have plenty of equity in their home. But a growing number are underwater. Americans and Their Homes: Demographics ofHomeownership reveals these trends and gives you the facts behind them.
· The Who We Are Series brings you, in three accessible volumes, which can be purchased singly or as a set, the facts you need about the size and characteristics of the country’s Asians, blacks, and Hispanics–the most rapidly growing segments of the consumer marketplace. In each volume,chapters examine attitudes, education, health, housing, income, labor force status, living arrangements, population, spending, time use, and wealth (in Blacks and Hispanics only).
New to the second edition of the Who We Are Series is a chapter on the attitudes of Asians, blacks, and Hispanics on issues ranging from happiness and trust in others to religious beliefs, political identification, and support for gay marriage. The population chapter includes 2010 census data showing numbers nationally and by state and metropolitan area. The spending chapter examines how Asians, blacks, and Hispanics prioritize their money, and the time use chapter shows how they prioritize their time. Also included in these volumes is the most recent information on the incomes, labor force participation, educational attainment, college enrollment, and living arrangements of Asians, blacks, and Hispanics.
ISBN 978-1-935775-33-1 (hardcover); ISBN 978-1-935775-34-8 (paper); 312 pages; June 2011
ISBN 978-1-935775-37-9 (hardcover); ISBN 978-1-935775-38-6 (paper); 326 pages; June 2011
BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW
Metropolitan areas with at least 1 million blacks: Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
Source: Who We Are: Blacks